Meaning
What does Yaoi mean?
Yaoi, also known as “Boy’s love” or its abbreviation, “BL”, is a one of the biggest and most consumed genres of fictional media.
It features homosexual relationships between male characters; it is usually written by women for women, but it can also attract male readers and men can produce it too.
“Yaoi” spans a wide variety of media, such as anime, manga, fan-fiction, games and so on.
“Yaoi” or “BL” stories usually cover a multitude of genres, including drama, romance, sci-fi and many more.
Origin
What's the origin of Yaoi?
“Yaoi” originates from Japan and it finds its origin in both fan culture and commercial publishing.
According to James Welker’s summary on the topic, the term “yaoi” dates back to “dojinshi” culture of the late 1970s to early 1980s.
Also, the genre can be traced back to “shonen-ai”, which is a genre called “beautiful boy manga” that began to appear in the late 1970s.
Spread & Usage
How did Yaoi spread?
“Yaoi” has a strong global presence and its works are available almost everywhere in various languages through international licensing and through fans and fandoms on the internet.
The culture of it has also been studied for many years by scholars and journalists worldwide.
The term has now over 115,000,000 Google search results.
